Evidence map›Paper›PMID 19357832›Full record

ArticleIntensive care medicine2009

Significance of the isolation of Candida species from airway samples in critically ill patients: a prospective, autopsy study.

W Meersseman, K Lagrou, I Spriet, J Maertens, E Verbeken, W E Peetermans, E Van Wijngaerden

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Intensive care medicine, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
82citing papers in PubMed, 5 pooled it
7.9field-weighted citation impact, top 2% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

82 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 228 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Impact of selective digestive decontamination on respiratory tract Candida among patients with suspected ventilator-associated pneumonia. A meta-analysis.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2016
    Pooled it
  4. Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of Candidiasis: 2016 Update by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2016
    Guideline
  5. Pooled it
  6. Trial
  7. Trial
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Outcomes Following Antifungal Treatment forJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026
    Article
  11. Article
  12. Pulmonary mycoses: a clinical perspective.Breathe (Sheffield, England) · 2026
    Review
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Viral reactivations and fungal infections in nonresolving acute respiratory distress syndrome.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2025
    Review
  17. Fungal lung disease.The European respiratory journal · 2024
    Review
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2023
    Article

22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

W Meerssemanwouter.meersseman@uzleuven.be
K Lagrou
I Spriet
J Maertens
E Verbeken
W E Peetermans
E Van Wijngaerden
UCLouvain · BEBeykoz Vocational School of Logistics · TR

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

purposeRecovery of Candida from the respiratory tract is common. Large series on the incidence of histologically proven Candida pneumonia in intensive care unit (ICU) patients are lacking.

methodsA two-year prospective study of all autopsies performed on patients who died in the ICU was conducted. For autopsy-proven cases of Candida pneumonia, we required microscopic demonstration of yeast invasion in lung autopsy specimens that showed inflammation. We looked for differences in incidence in patients with and without respiratory samples positive for Candida species pre-mortem.

resultsOf 1,587 patients admitted to the ICU, 301 (19%) died of whom 232 (77%) were autopsied. Of those, 135 patients (58%) had histopathological evidence of pneumonia. A total of 77 cases (57%) with pneumonia at autopsy had positive tracheal aspirate and/or BAL cultures for Candida spp. performed during the preceding two weeks. No cases of Candida pneumonia were identified amongst those 77 cases. In the other 58 patients with autopsy-proven pneumonia and no Candida isolation pre-mortem, no Candida pneumonia was observed either.

conclusionsDespite frequent isolation of Candida spp. from the airways, over a two-year period no single case of Candida pneumonia was found among the patients with evidence of pneumonia on autopsy. This study indicates that Candida pneumonia is an extremely rare occurrence in ICU patients and provides further evidence against the common use of antifungal therapy triggered by a microbiology report of Candida isolation from the respiratory tract.

Indexed as

AutopsyCritical IllnessAgedBronchiCandidaFemaleHospital MortalityHumansIntensive Care UnitsMaleProspective StudiesSpecimen Handling

Identifiers

PMID19357832
OpenAlexW2039181347

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.